AUDIO PLAYBACK for a music video???

Shoota33

Shoota33

Member
Im shooting a music video this weekend and wanted to know the simplest way to play the audio playback to ensure synching between the music track and the video in post...

Im going to be shooting at either 720 or 1080i at a 24p setting on the HVX200 and wont be playing around with the frame rates except in the "story line" protion of the video, which we'll be shooting MOS...

Can I use a CD player, itunes, etc..? Or will the video fall out of synch...? If that's the case, does anyone have a SIMPLE solution for audio playback...? We are on a bear-bones budget!

Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Also any recommendations between the 720/1080 settings...?

Thanks
 
so im guessing that the band will be playing along/lipsyncing to a PA? youre never going to get guaranteed sync start to finish. there are just too many variables between playback device and editing environment. but thats how it always is. you have to build in a few frames here and there but as long as you have multiple edits in the piece that wont be hard. the sync drift will never be enough to be perceptible among a bunch of short edits

720 vs 1080. doesnt matter. neither effects the end result in any way other than dimension and filesize...
 
To achieve sync to a music video, it depends on the music itself. Is the music already recorded. The best way is if you already have a recording of the song that will be in the video.
As you shoot each part of the video, you will be playing back the music, preferable with a solid playback device, high quality. Time code enabled is best but not necessary. You take the master music, record it into the playback device, and then the band or artist will lip sync to the music being played back. A live recording is difficult to shoot. If you can rent or borrow a Sound Devices 702T a high quality 2 channel recorder. Like I said timecode is not necessary but will make your life easier. If you can rent or borrow a timecode slate, that will also make your life easier. Since the HVX cannot take timecode input, you show your slate, as the music starts, cue the artist and start recording. Then you match the timecode in your editing suite. Its not hard to do, its easy..
 
Most of the time I use an Ipod. Random access is a must. A CD burned with indexes breaking the song into 1st vrs, chrs, 2nd vrs, musical interlude...etc is also very handy. Either way, you want to give the band a little lead time to get into the groove before the scene actually starts rolling. As for drift, it happens, but is easily covered up with multiple camera edits.


Jason
 
its really not that big of a deal. all you have to do is find a drum hit, guitar strum, a hard consonant vocal and match the pre recorded audio to that event in the video. and sometimes you even generate a little interest by intentionally breaking sync.

at the end of the day, unless youre doing long (10 sec or more) single clips its really a non-issue.
 
what we normally do is play the playback through PA and record the audio both via the built in mic and a line out of the Pa mixer into the camera, so you have both the live and the line music and let the band lyp sync. In post we laydown the master track from the audio CD zoom suffeciently and then move the video track so its audio wave peaks match that of the master track as close as possible, usually the difference might be a frame or two, but the results come out very well.
 
Most of the time I use an Ipod. Random access is a must
Click to expand...
hey, that's pretty smart!

both via the built in mic and a line out of the Pa mixer into the camera
Click to expand...
why would you go though the hassle of connecting the pa to the camera?
IF the built-in mic wasnt enough to sync to, you could always just sync it visually...
 
If you have a laptop with Final Cut installed you can put the audio into a timeline with the same settings as you will edit and plug that into PA. You will be playing from the project file you will be editing from. This also makes for easy random playback and easy looping from in and out points.
 
all of this tech stuff is pointless. i shoot a lot of music vids and i have never seen a band play perfectly or a singer lipsync perfectly. you can get as techie as you want with the playback but you're still going to be slipping clips a frame or two here and there to best match the music. i record scratch audio to cam using onboard mic and that is plenty to sync. then once my edit is done i go thru and adjust each clip as needed to best match the sync.
 
wgzn said:
hey, that's pretty smart!


why would you go though the hassle of connecting the pa to the camera?
IF the built-in mic wasnt enough to sync to, you could always just sync it visually...
Click to expand...

It's way easier to sync if you have the actual track on one of your audio channels. Then, with every shot, you have the song to go along with the video, and if you slate your shots, it's even easier to line up with the master track. It just makes things simpler when you go to edit. But, to each his own. Whatever works!
 
ok if you wanna get super techie, check this out.

note: i only do this when shooting a different frame rate or in any other situation where i can't record sound. to me, it's a pain in the arse, but it is an extremely accurate way to sync.

before the shoot, load the music into final cut or whatever you edit with. then use a timecode generator to have timecode displayed on screen as the music plays. make sure the framerate is set to the same framerate you plan to shoot. also, have the music start 5 seconds after the timecode starts. export the music with timecode as video in ipod/iphone format.

load this video onto your ipod/iphone. use your ipod/iphone as your playback device. run the headphone out to a pa system or boombox with an aux in. when shooting, roll cam then playback and have the ipod/iphone in front of the lens when you start it. the timecode is seen by the camera and later by the editor.

there you have it!! poor man's smart slate.
 
We did this back in school with a portable 3/4" deck and battery powered speakers. Our Avid had Beta SP and 3/4". Of course this is circa '96.
 
cheezweezl said:
ok if you wanna get super techie, check this out.

note: i only do this when shooting a different frame rate or in any other situation where i can't record sound. to me, it's a pain in the arse, but it is an extremely accurate way to sync.

before the shoot, load the music into final cut or whatever you edit with. then use a timecode generator to have timecode displayed on screen as the music plays. make sure the framerate is set to the same framerate you plan to shoot. also, have the music start 5 seconds after the timecode starts. export the music with timecode as video in ipod/iphone format.

load this video onto your ipod/iphone. use your ipod/iphone as your playback device. run the headphone out to a pa system or boombox with an aux in. when shooting, roll cam then playback and have the ipod/iphone in front of the lens when you start it. the timecode is seen by the camera and later by the editor.

there you have it!! poor man's smart slate.
Click to expand...

I've actually done this, haha. It works really well actually.
 
Any suggestions for battery-powered speakers that will be loud enough for an outdoor shoot? no electrical access... unless a generator is used (prefer to avoid this).
 
Using a laptop I take the track I am going to sync to and add beeps at the front, playing it back in FCP. Even if you use the camera mic as a sync reference, it is a nice spikey visual that lines your tracks up in a jiffy. I experience about a frame of drift for every 3 minutes or so. (Of course thats with my camera, and my laptop... your results may vary)

you can check this green screened video that was shot at half speed using Barry G's magic conversion fornula.

http://www.vimeo.com/4179947

IT'S ALL ONE TAKE, NO EDITS so drift was not acceptable. I think the whole take is 2 minutes. Any variance in lipsync is my own shoddy performance. Also, since it is shot in variable speed there is no audio in the original clip to sync to. I fudged it by sneaking the laptop screen into the bottom left corner of the frame and using a visual countoff. I matted it out later.
 
the number one thing you want to avoid is a battery powered playback unless your playing back from an ipod or CD. if its a tape for whatever reason the battery dying down will slowly (unnoticebaly) change the sound speed.
finally its not as bad it sounds. use the playback make sure you can hear it on camera and just line up the tracks in post. make sure you got audio scrubbing turned on so you can see the waves.

lastly if your using final cut you can create a multiclip sequence (do a google search for multiclip) basically you set an inpoint for all the clips your using and it helps you move along the master track but as you move along you it keeps all the clips in time with where your at on the timeline.
 
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